There are several simple strategies to mitigate cheating in online exams from how you craft your questions to monitoring test taking. The Office of Teaching and Learning encourages the use of Proctorio testing software to record and archive testing sessions when using high-stakes exams. Quiz settings in Canvas also offer a variety of ways to control the testing experience and promote academic honesty. This section will include instructions on using Proctorio and Canvas tools, as well as provide guidance on developing strong test questions.
UVU has purchased Proctorio Testing Software to monitor students remotely while they take exams via a webcam. These sessions are archived for review. You can learn more about Proctorio at the Office of Teaching and Learning’s website.
Proctorio requires students to have access to a computer with a web camera. Make sure
students know they will need one in plenty of time prior to the exam so they can be
ready.
Canvas quiz settings are a valuable tool to increase exam integrity. Consider setting the following options when you create your tests (see figure below):
Check “Shuffle Answers”
Check “Time Limit”
Suggest 1 minute per “recall type” question
Uncheck “Let Students See the Correct Answers”
Consider “Show one question at a time”
Makes it more difficult to share exams
Limit test availability dates
Using Canvas Question banks can support academic integrity. They also offer more flexibility than quizzes populated with questions. Here are instructions on how to create the question bank. Once the question banks are created you can then create a quiz with a question group linked to the question bank.
Creating and using question banks in this way offers the following advantages:
Contact the Office of Teaching and Learning to learn more.
According to a study titled “Deterring Cheating in Online Environments”, honor statements in exams can discourage cheating. Include an initial question such as “I affirm any answers given on this exam will demonstrate my own learning of the material with no unauthorized material or outside help” as a true / false question. Be explicit in the test instructions regarding the behavior you expect during the exam.
These same researchers also found that putting a strong statement about the consequences of cheating at the beginning of the exam reduced cheating on exams by 56 percent.
How you craft your questions is one of the most powerful ways to ensure students submit their own thoughts and ideas. Consider some of the following strategies as you develop your exam questions:
Faculty might consider using an open-book exam, using the tips suggested above to create strong questions. This has the added benefit of assessing a student’s critical thinking abilities rather than their ability to simply recall facts.
Laura Killam, a faculty member at Nipissing University, stated in her recent Blog post, ‘Exam Design’ “The facts of this [COVID 19] situation lead me to believe that there is a high risk of cheating if educators take a traditional and punitive approach to exam delivery. Students are under unprecedented levels of stress. Students are desperate to pass and trying to manage so many things right now that these circumstances are definitely right for cheating.”
